


six days at the bottom

by DevilishKurumi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Car Accidents, Drowning, Humanstuck, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:20:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilishKurumi/pseuds/DevilishKurumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sollux accidentally crashes his car into a lake, and Dave rescues him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	six days at the bottom

**Author's Note:**

> written for an anon who requested some lake-driving-into action!
> 
> have some [mood music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSKCpfmYkU).

            You are totally, completely, back-asswards lost.  That's not to say that you had a destination in mind when you started driving, but it's been three days and as many states later and you are pretty fucking sure you're going north, even though your car's compass is reading southeast.  It's been reading that since three in the morning, so you're pretty fucking sure it's wrong, this is north, and you're probably in Colorado or something.

            It's just edging on five thirty in the morning, and you're driving along a two-lane road winding along a lake that you don't know the name of.  Not for the first time, you regret not getting a map at the last gas station you were in - which was a long while ago, long enough for your car to be running nearly on empty, and where the hell is a town?  Don't all lakes have little mountain towns with serial killers and gas stations and stuff?

            Your parents have called four times in the last twenty-four hours.  You'd stopped answering after the second call.  You're not even sure why, just that they want you to come home and you don't want to yet.  It's that simple, really.

            Karkat's tried texting, but it's all blurred together into a lot of capital letters and desperate attempts to reassure you that everything is fine at home, and if you never come back it'll be okay, but please come back anyway.  Feferi called once, too; she left a voice message and you haven't listened to it.

            You're so fucking tired.

            The radio is mostly static, except for this one classical channel, and since your iPod is completely dead and you don't have any CDs, it's all you've got to listen to.  It's playing _Ride of the Valkyries_ , which you'd always thought would be an awesome song to drive to, except you're way too fucking exhausted to really get pumped up by Wagner.

            You stifle a yawn, roll up your window and reach into the passenger seat for some beef jerky, figuring that even with a gas guzzler like your dad's car, you've got another thirty miles in the tank before you really have to start worrying about whether or not you're going to need to call AAA and, in turn, notify your parents as to where you are.  That's the last fucking thing you want to do right now.

            You take your eyes off the road when you're certain the straightaway is going to last a minute or two, digging up your dried out beef bark, and then a split second later you're blinded by high beams and deafened by horns blasting and all you think is _get the fuck out of the way_ before you're cranking the wheel hard, not caring which way you're going until you hit the wooden fence separating the road from the downward slope to the lake.  You try turning the tires but the wheel's locked and you don't realize that the slope abruptly drops off until you're flying over it, slamming on the breaks too late, _ten and two_ you shout at yourself, but it's too late, the water's rushing up and when the front bumper hits the water, skimming like a skipping stone, your head whips forward, your seatbelt not tightening enough to keep you from slamming your forehead into the wheel.

            A soft bump against your front bumper rouses you.  You don't know how long you've been out, but it can't be more than thirty seconds.  Maybe a minute.  Your feet are wet.

            It's pitch black around you, with little shimmery slices of moonlight from above, right through the sunroof.  You stare at the murky reflection, blinking, trying to remember what you'd been doing just a second ago, your head hurts so fucking much - and then water drips onto your nose.

            There's water all around you, and under you, seeping into the car from below, and it's dark and you're trapped you're _trapped -_

            You try to undo your seatbelt.  It's jammed, tight against your chest, so tight you can hardly breathe, and your hands are shaking too much, your fingers are too numb to jimmy the little stuck part that always gives you shit if you slam on the brakes too hard.

            "Oh, God," you say, even though that's not really helping, and you try to take deep breaths like they told you to do sophomore year when you found out your dad had been in a car accident and then again in college when Aradia had said _heart disease_ in that funny, tinny little voice and oh, oh fuck, you are panicking, you are flipping your shit in this insane, fantastic way that you had never thought you could do.

            You've never been so fucking terrified.

            There's not a lot of air in the car, you know, and there's going to be a lot more water soon, and if you can't undo your seatbelt, you're not going to get out of the car, and the power's not working, except for these little flickers from the headlights, and the spasming, dying breath of your radio, all static.  You need to do something.

            So you grab your phone.  You have one bar of service, and so you pull your knees to your chest as best you can, feeling water slosh against the power seating of your chair, and dial.

            "911, please state your emergency."

            There's a second where you don't know how to respond, and so you just sob a little, and the lady on the other end of the line - the last person you're ever going to speak to - says, "Ma'am?"

            You bark out a laugh and scrub at your eyes, then stare as you pull back and find blood on your hands.  "I'm in the lake," you say.

            "What?"

            "I'm - I drove - I went off the road, I'm in the lake."  You gulp down more air and try to keep from having a heart attack before you drown.

            "Sir," she says, not wasting time with an apology, "We are aware of your situation and have officers on the way."  Her voice is staticky, cutting out just a little, and you try to tilt to get a better reception.  "How much-"

            There's a knock on your sunroof.

            You nearly drop the phone into the water under the steering column, clutching it to your chest as you lift your head to look up.  There's something in the water above you, but it swims out of sight before you can say anything.

            "Someone's knocking on the roof," you say as you lift the phone back to your ear.

            "Excuse me?"

            "There's someone," you repeat, trying to fight back terror long enough to make your lisp manageable, "Knocking."

            You're unclipping your keychain flashlight even as the lady says, "Sir, there is nobody knocking on your car, you are submerged in the lake."

            The knocking comes again, this time from the passenger window.  You try to control your breathing as you turn on the light, shining up at the sunroof before swinging it down to the window being tapped on.  Little drops of water splash all around you.  You can see water seeping in from the window frame, and beyond it -

            "He has blond hair," you say into the phone, cutting off the instructions you weren't listening to.  "And princess goggles."

            There's a pause that eats up another few seconds of your time.  You've been submerged for three minutes.  Water's up to your seat, now, and it's fucking freezing.

            "Don't do anything he says," she finally says, sounding exasperated, "Make him _leave_ , he is not trained to help you - sir?"

            The blond raps on the glass, then floats upwards a bit as he mimics taking off a seatbelt.  You stare at him.

            "I can't," you say, and drop the phone into the water.  He stares at you, wearing really shitty Batman boxers, and then disappears, swimming up.  "No, shit, _don't_ -"

            You know he can't hear you, but you fumble with the seatbelt anyway, struggling to undo it, the water's in the seat now, the cops aren't going to make it in time.  You press your hand to the sunroof, then bang your fist against it and scream.

            " _Don't fucking leave me!_ "

            But he's gone, and you're alone, and you're so fucking scared.  This is worse than fender benders or funerals for sorority girls, this is more fucking horrific than waking up and feeling nobody next to you for days and weeks on end and then losing that person once you _found them_ , you are going to die, choking on ice water in a car you practically stole because you were just fucking _scared_ and -

            There's knocking on the window again.  You flash your light around wildly, until you see the glint of metal, and the blond guy swimming around your car like it's some kind of novelty pirate ship in his own personal fishbowl presses his face to the windshield.  He points at your passenger seat and gives you a thumbs up.  You look over and stare blindly at the beef jerky and the bag of chips and the toothbrush and your pocket knife, and then you stare at him until he knocks again and points.

            You bite down on the end of your flashlight and grab the pocket knife, fumbling it open, then reach into the water to saw at the seatbelt near the retracting mechanism.  It's slow going and the water's at your chest now, your feet back on the ground because what else can you do, and the blonde disappears again as you work.

            You look up and see him floating just out of reach of the car.  There are blue and red lights flashing back and forth, and sometimes you wonder if you get in trouble so much just because you like the way the colors flash together.

            He returns after the water reaches your neck, and you don't know if you should care or not.  He knocks, and you stare up at him, seeing metal glint again in the light shining from your mouth.  Now you see he's got a crowbar in hand.

            He holds up three fingers, then two, then one, then covers his mouth with his free hand and swims upward.  When he returns, you can't move your head down again, or else you'll swallow water.  He gives you a thumbs up.

            "Please," you say, "Don't leave again."

            He doesn't hear you.  He just slips each foot under the rails on top of the roof, bracing himself, and then brings the crowbar down.  He's trying to break through the sunroof.  You lose your grip on the knife before you can saw all the way through, throwing up your hands as if you can hold back the torrent that's about to come down on you.

            "Don't!" you shout, but he doesn't hear you, and you're going to die now because a fucking moron is trying to break into your goddamn car while you're _under fucking water_.

            Spidering cracks appear, dripping more water, faster, like a rainfall, and you cover your face with your hands and gulp in a big breath of air just as the glass cracks hard and then breaks above you.  Water rushes down and you try not to cry out, covering your mouth with your hands, plugging your nose, but you can't get free.  Hands grab at you, but when he pulls, your shoulder pops and you _howl_.

            Bubbles fly up everywhere, all around you, and without thinking you gulp down water, then gag and grab at his arms.  He pulls again, then grabs the seatbelt and _yanks_.  You feel it give across your lap, and then he's pulling you up, but there's water in your mouth and in your lungs, and you can't grip him with how numb your fingers are.

            It takes ten seconds to break the surface.  You're passing out by eight.  You can feel your heart beating in your ears, pressure building like a fucking vice, and then someone's beating you in the chest and saying, "C'mon, you stupid asshole, I went through a lot of fucking trouble-"

            You hack up what feels like gallons of water, rolling onto your side and coughing until you actually throw up.  Someone's hitting your back, but softly, like how you do for Karkat when he drinks too much, and you sob as someone else drapes a blanket over your shoulders.

            "Thank you God," you gasp.

            "Dave, actually, but that's cool too.  Whatever."

            You look up - you lost your glasses somewhere along the way - and see that your rescuer is crouching on all fours in front of you, mimicking your pose.  His goggles are pushed up into his hair, and he's got bright red eyes that you would have only assumed came in contact form.

            "Fuck," you say.  "Fuck, I can't - oh my God."

            "You'll be fine," he says.

            The cops are swarming the area, but when they try to pull Dave out of the way, to get his statement or something, you grab his arm and refuse to let go.  You can see the pickup truck that ran you off the road just up the hill, just before the sharp drop to the shoreline.

            "Don't fucking take him away," you say, and they listen to you.  Dave looks uncomfortable as fuck, but you don't care.  Your left arm is throbbing from where it was dislocated, but you don't give a shit about that, either.

            "Dude, they have to do something about your arm," he says.  He sounds embarrassed.

            "You saved my life," you snap, "Let me fucking thank you, okay?"

            "Uh.  Sure."

            It's not like you actually have anything to say to him, though, and so eventually the paramedics separate you from him, getting you onto a stretcher because apparently you're in shock and your shoulder's dislocated, and a gash the size of fucking Texas on your head.  You've lost a lot of blood, according to them.  But when they put you in the ambulance up the hill, you tell them to make sure Dave knows where you're being taken.  They agree, bemused but cooperative, and you let them put you out without a fight.

            When you wake up, it's mid-afternoon and you're in the ICU of some general county hospital that you don't know.  The only thing familiar is the scruffy blond sitting in the chair next to your bed, texting on his phone.

            "Shit," you say.  "I got hit by a fucking bus."

            "Nah," he says, without looking up, "You just drove into a lake.  No big."

            Both of you are silent for a while, and then finally he looks up.  He's wearing aviators.  "So, your name's Sollux, huh?"

            "What?"

            Dave holds up his phone.  "Been texting your roommate or whatever.  Got the SIM card out of your phone.  Hope you don't mind, I'm basically becoming his best friend."

            You don't know how you feel about him texting Karkat, but there's not much else to do about it now.  "Yeah," you say, distantly, closing your eyes.

            "Okay, Sollux.  So, Karkles here is gonna tell your dads where you are.  Sorry, they kind of need to know."

            Despite your own sense of relief, you can't help but loathe the idea of them finding out you were stupid enough to nearly drown.  You're such a fuckup - they really don't need more proof of that.

            "Cool.  So, anyway.  After you get out of the hospital, want to grab dinner or something?"

            _That_ makes you open your eyes again, staring at Dave.  "Seriously?  Are you seriously asking me out right now?"

            "Yeah."

            You groan and lift a hand to cover your face, careful of the IV stuck into it.  "Oh my God."

            "So, that's a yes?"

            It takes you a minute - one you relish, because you hadn't thought you'd have the chance to spare a minute on complete disbelief ever again - but finally, you lean your head to look at him through your fingers.  He looks like he's trying not to be an excitable puppy about his courting attempts.  It's not working.

            "What the hell," you say.  "Sure."

            After all, he did save your life.  Who are you to complain if he wants to be an all American hero and buy you dinner, too?


End file.
